The Same Russians Who Hacked Clinton Are Targeting Biden

Microsoft says that the same group of cyber criminals from Russia that attempted to interfere in the 2016 US election are trying to break into email accounts belonging to staff members from across the political spectrum.

Other hackers from China and Iran are also attempting to spy on the presidential campaigns of Donald Trump and Joe Biden, according to Microsoft. 

The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) recently warned that foreign groups and other malicious actors online are spreading disinformation around potential cyber attacks on US election infrastructure.  “During the 2020 election season, foreign actors and cyber criminals are spreading false and inconsistent information through various online platforms in an attempt to manipulate public opinion, discredit the electoral process, and undermine confidence in US democratic institutions,” the agencies wrote 

Officials with the Department of Homeland Security and US intelligence have been saying for years that Russia and other nations will try to use hacking and disinformation to undermine the 2020 contest. This would be similar to the last presidential race, when they leaked reams of embarrassing information about Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in an effort to help Donald Trump.  Then the agencies warned that US voter information is widely available through other avenues than illegal hacking, and that access to voter information had not impacted election results. 

Hackers targeted staff at Washington DC firm SKDKnickerbocker, a campaign strategy and communications firm working with Biden. ​Microsoft identified the suspected hacking group as the same set of spies blamed by the US government for breaking into the campaign of Democratic former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and leaking the emails of her staff, two of the sources said. 

The group, which many researchers refer to as “Fancy Bear,” is controlled by the Russia’s military intelligence agency, according to reports from the US intelligence community released after the 2016 election. A person familiar with SKDK’s response to the attempts said the hackers failed to gain access to the firm’s networks. “They are well-defended, so there has been no breach,” the person said.

US intelligence agencies have raised alarms about possible efforts by foreign governments to interfere in the November presidential election.

Investigations by former special counsel Robert Mueller and the Senate intelligence committee both concluded that affiliates of the Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election to try to help Republican Donald Trump get elected. Mueller has warned that Russia was meddling in the current campaign. The Biden campaign said it was aware Microsoft said

One of the sources familiar with the incident told the Washington Post  that it was not clear whether Biden’s campaign was the target or whether the hackers were attempting to gain access to information about other SKDK clients. 

The attempts to infiltrate SKDK were recently flagged to the campaign firm by Microsoft, which identified hackers tied to the Russian government as the likely culprits, according to the three sources briefed on the matter. The attacks included phishing, a hacking method which seeks to trick users into disclosing passwords, as well as other efforts to infiltrate SKDK’s network, the three sources said.

Microsoft believes Fancy Bear is behind the attacks based on an analysis of the group’s hacking techniques and network infrastructure, one of the sources said.

The company, which has extraordinary visibility on digital threats via its widely used Windows operating system and cloud services has taken an increasingly active role in calling out state-backed cyber espionage. In 2018, the company launched its Defending Democracy initiative, aimed in part at safeguarding campaigns from hackers.

It is thought that Iran tried to hack into Gmail accounts used by President Trump’s reelection campaign staff  and that  China, has tried to hack staff for former vice president Joe Biden, Democratic presidential candidate.

These nation state-backed hacking campaigns are likely to be the just the beginning of a general election campaign that will be ripe for disruption by US adversaries.  The kinds of disinformation campaigns being pushed heavily by bots take a variety of forms, including false information about voting logistics like date, place, or fake voting requirements.

Reuters:       Washington Post:       NPR:      Sky:     The Hill:         TechRepublic: 

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